Two artists exhibiting at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art create contemporary interpretations of traditional ceramic vessels with links to East Asia.
But the work is worlds apart.
Richmond-based Vivian Chiu received the Best in Show Goode Prize at the 2024 Biennial, "Made in Virginia" exhibition.
The prize came with $10,000 and a solo show concurrent with the subsequent biennial exhibition, both of which opened recently. The money covered studio rent and the purchase of equipment; just as importantly, she said in an email interview, “having this exhibition in the pipeline gave me the validation and confidence to take risks and make larger, newer work.”
“From Here” features intricate wooden vessels modeled after traditional ceramic porcelainware made from the packing crates in which they were shipped.
In 2022, Chiu received an Instagram message from Mei Lum, the fifth-generation owner of Wing On Wo & Co., the oldest continuously operating storefront in New York’s Chinatown. In the basement were generations of heirloom crates that Lum offered to Chiu.
Chiu wrote to Lum: “Give me as much as you’re willing to let go.”
Chiu knew instantly that she wanted to turn the crates inside out, transforming them into the vessels they originally held. Figuring out how to do that took much longer. Months of research and development ensued. The vexing aspects of the wood — cracks, warping, uneven thicknesses and knots — were part of the visual appeal to be preserved, along with the shipping stamps, nails and other evidence of the crates’ lives.
Chiu's laborious process included figuring out how to “ 'bend’ the wood without actually bending it.” After drawing a pattern, she made hundreds of small, faceted cuts on a table saw. She then reassembled those pieces into staves, which she cut at an angle on a bandsaw before sanding and gluing them into the vessels.
In these crates and vessels, Chiu found a parallel to her journey between her family’s home in Hong Kong and the U.S.; the contrast between high-status, highly refined objects and the worn, crude and humble crates has become a significant aspect of the work.
With “Revolving Vase (Round Trip),” the title is a clue to the tensions and connections between Eastern and Western materials and symbols that drive her work.
The vase is a double gourd, which is associated with prosperity in Chinese culture, and features Cathay Pacific airplanes among auspicious cloud motifs, all made from natural and dyed wood veneers. Turn the vase, and the nested interior reveals the two airplanes.
The work invites "viewers to think about what it means to live between countries and cultures,” she wrote in the email, as well as remembering and honoring generations who came before.
Chiu earned a bachelor's in fine art and furniture design from the Rhode Island School of Design and then a master's in fine art sculpture from Columbia in 2019. She also worked for years as a studio assistant for Ursula von Rydingsvard in New York; fabricating large-scale cedar sculptures taught her to develop a system. She served a 2023 residency at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine, where she perfected the vessel process with Yuri Kobayashi.
On the floor of the adjacent gallery in the Made in Virginia Biennial are rows of humble rice bowls, white with rich red interiors, made by kelli rae adams. Titled “Forever in Your Debt,” the installation is an interactive visualization of student debt.
First shown at Mass MoCA, hundreds of hand-thrown bowls represent the average student debt burden in the U.S. of $37,000. Each bowl is estimated to hold $40, a number calculated by filling one of the pint-sized vessels with mixed change. Visitors are invited to give an offering, and as the bowls accumulate coins, the red interior, which symbolizes being “in the red,” is gradually erased. The installation at MOCA represents only the interest accrued. Those who give enough to fill a bowl will receive one at the conclusion of the yearslong exhibition, and the money will be donated to a related charity.
adams, who doesn't capitalize her name, completed a five-year ceramics apprenticeship with Tetsuro Hatabe in Japan, where she also taught English and completed an MFA in ceramics at RISD.
She is known nationally and internationally for her conceptual and nontraditional ceramics-based installations. Through her contemplative and social practice, she uses clay in various states of permanency to engage viewers in the exploration of economic realities and the complex connections between labor, currency, and value.
The works will be on display through March 21. Visit virginiamoca.org for more information
